How to develop an Organization Development & Design discipline? Here's how you start...

Ever started building a house? If you did, here are three things, aside of many other things, you certainly thought about:

1. Get a budget plan. My Chinese laundry man always said to me when in the states: No ticky? No washy!
2. Know what type of the house you want (concept), and therefore also keep in mind the future usage of it (your kids, parents, hobby room, dentist practice at ground floor, etc...?)
3. Ensure you can built, how and what (compliance, regulations). Ever seen people losing their homes because they built in a forest without building permits? I did ;)

And that's what Organization Development & Design is about: it is both the process and the product of planning, designing, and developing organizations. I, therefore, prefer to call the discipline Organization Architecture.

Unfortunately most Organization Architecture functions you find in organizations do start with building the roof and walls of the house, before considering to develop the disciplines of planning & designing.

So where do you start? Apparently with planning & design: planning the data management strategy of the organization structure & people and design of the organization based on position & identity.

Based on position & identity control, and the design of your organization data strategy & processes will allow the organization to develop in a controlled manner its systems, processes and culture.

In summary, the Organization Design data, system & process is fundamental to develop an Organization Development discipline that is concrete and objective.

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About the Author: 

Frederik Haentjens is the Organization Development & Design professional and owner of the blog site www.boxolog.com

I like to share my passion and experience on Organization Development & Design. So don't hesitate to contact me by emailfred@boxolog.com or follow me on Twitter@Boxolog.

Only 20% of the HR professionals are...

.... and here I will quote: "20% of the professionals are exceptional, adding value that helps organizations move forward, 20% of HR folks are locked into a fixed mindset and lack either competence or commitment to deliver real value, and 60% are in the middle.". (Dave Ulrich, HRB July/2014).

The above quote was a part of a response of Dave Ulrich in the 2014 article It's time to split HR where Ram Charan proposed to split HR into two parts:
1. HR - A. The HR Administration would report to the CFO
2. HR - LO. The part of HR that takes care of Leadership (L) and Organization (O) would remain under CEO and provide strategic Human Capital Advisory to the management.



Dave Ulrich is a big defender of HR, and he has a prominent place in the "HR Hall of Fame". He speaks mainly to the minds and hearts of HR professionals. But his HR guru status didn't stop him to admit that HR can be split. His three-legged stool HR model (business partner, operations, excellence) clearly distinguished a "split" between the intelligence and machine of HR. We all know that 80% of the HR function is to maintain and execute Human Capital plans. In today's well-developed technology world also HR operations are (or can) (almost) fully automated and can be executed by support and operations units. And HR operations can be centralized with other organization operations, and doesn't require a "unique" set of skills to maintain and execute the HR transactions.


Anyway, we could discuss in how far HR can be split or retooled, but here are a couple of conclusions that even prominent people like Ulrich will not disagree with:
1. HR excellence doesn't require the "volume" and quantity of resources that you mind find today in traditional HR departments (or let's call them personnel). We might end with 20% of the actual HR staff that exists today
2. HR units are often overstaffed due to the fact the operations are not always equipped with the latest HR tools, are over-bureaucratic and paper based. Some re-tooling and technology might help us save 80% of the operations costs. Also, some centralization of operations (including HR) will help to optimize and simplify things.
3. The CHRO is often crippled by his overloaded by HR administration & compliance, pay & legal tasks (labor issues, administration, compensation). The CHRO focus should be limited to leadership (or talent), performance (or capability) & analytics. That's it!

My response to Blow up HR: I wouldn't blow it up, but I would split it intelligently enough, because: only 20% of the HR professionals are dealing with HR issues, the remaining 80% are administrators.

About the Author:

Frederik Haentjens is the Organization Development & Design professional and owner of the blog site www.boxolog.com

I like to share my passion and experience on Organization Development & Design. So don't hesitate to contact me by email fred@boxolog.com or follow me on Twitter @Boxolog.